Recently, joint delegations from the Foshan Chamber of Import and Export and the Zhaoqing Government-Enterprise Foreign Trade Alliance paid successive visits to the Greater Bay Area Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export. Both the Foshan and Zhaoqing Chambers of Import and Export are co-founding members of the Chamber. Centered on collaborative development, the visit focused on resource matching and future development planning to advance deeper economic and trade integration among the “9+2” city cluster of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA).

Forging New Cooperation with Foshan Chamber of Import and Export

On May 28, a delegation led by Shen Yaoliang, President of the Foshan Chamber of Import and Export, visited the Chamber. Fan Qinzhang, Vice President, and Kuang Manxi, Executive Secretary-General of the host Chamber, extended a warm reception. The guests toured the exhibition hall to learn about the Chamber’s organizational structure, service portfolio and practical outcomes of its “9+2+N” economic and trade collaboration initiative, and watched promotional videos showcasing its core strengths in GBA resource consolidation, overseas market expansion support for enterprises and international platform development. In-depth exchanges were also held on enterprise service practices and international market development.

To mark the friendly exchange, the two sides exchanged commemorative gifts. The host Chamber presented a plaque inscribed with “Ride the Wind and Waves, Sail Overseas in Unity”. The plaque symbolizes the inseparable bond linking all cities in the GBA’s “9+2” cluster, embodying the resolve of local import and export chambers to unite foreign trade enterprises for coordinated global expansion, risk mitigation and shared access to worldwide business opportunities.

Discussing Digital Upgrade & Global Market Expansion with Zhaoqing Government-Enterprise Delegation

On May 29, Luo Mingxian, Section Chief of the Trade Management Division under Zhaoqing Municipal Bureau of Commerce, headed a cross-departmental delegation comprising officials from Huaiji Bureau of Industry and Information Technology, Huaiji Administration for Market Regulation and the Zhaoqing Chamber of Import and Export for a site visit. Via on-site exhibition tours and feature videos, the delegation gained full insight into the Chamber’s capacity as a pivotal GBA foreign trade hub for resource integration and its full-spectrum international service system.

During the forum, the Zhaoqing delegation briefed hosts on the city’s foreign trade landscape: as a strategic gateway connecting the GBA to western Guangdong, Zhaoqing boasts robust traditional industries including hardware manufacturing and electronics, alongside booming cross-border e-commerce for featured sectors such as food & beverage and Sihui jade ware, with its foreign trade growth ranking top across Guangdong Province last year. Meanwhile, the delegation candidly outlined prevailing bottlenecks: insufficient progress in digital transformation, inadequate city-wide comprehensive service infrastructure and limited access to emerging overseas markets, highlighting urgent demand to connect with core GBA resources to drive breakthrough growth.

Zou Shuji, Executive President of the host Chamber, put forward targeted proposals addressing Zhaoqing’s development hurdles from three dimensions: digital transformation of foreign trade, construction of comprehensive foreign trade service platforms and exploration of emerging global markets, leveraging the Chamber’s institutional strengths. Aligning with the overarching GBA integration strategy, both parties reached a substantial consensus to establish a regular communication mechanism and facilitate seamless resource sharing.

The successive visits by leading officials and chamber representatives from Foshan and Zhaoqing further solidify the Chamber’s “9+2” regional collaboration network and lay a solid foundation for its all-dimensional open cooperation framework of “9+2+N”. Established jointly by industrial and commercial entities from Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao as an integrated foreign trade service platform, the Chamber anchors its development in national strategies, takes the GBA as the core growth engine to facilitate cross-regional resource flow, complementary advantages and industrial upgrading nationwide, striving to set an industry benchmark for high-quality foreign trade development led by the Greater Bay Area with nationwide synergies.

Moving forward, the Chamber will deepen strategic coordination with all co-founding members and refine its full-chain, one-stop and internationalized foreign trade service system. By pooling foreign trade resources from the GBA and across China to support enterprises’ global expansion, the Chamber will capitalize on historic opportunities brought by RCEP, the Belt and Road Initiative and global industrial chain restructuring. It will back China’s foreign trade in stabilizing trade volume and optimizing business mix amid volatile global conditions, and consolidate the GBA’s foundational role in building China into a leading trading nation.